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Published by: on Thursday July 19th, 2012

In the ever-growing roster of Barack Obama’s ignorant statements about how business works, about how America works, about the reality of our nation today – Obama’s pronouncements over the weekend in Virginia probably will put the notion that Cambridge cops “acted stupidly” and that the “private sector is doing fine” into the second tier of rhetorical lunacy.

In chiding and insulting the rich, telling them that they “didn’t get there on (their) own,” the President has moved the economic debate as framed by his campaign and his Presidency to a new kindergarten intellectual low. It really takes talent to shoehorn this much ignorance and hate and misplaced anger into such few words. And yet he did.

And in response to his signature line from the speech: No, Mr. President, the rich generally don’t “get there on their own” - but in case you haven’t noticed, they rarely “arrive there alone” either.

Take any rich guy you want – like, say, the late Steve Jobs – and apply the “didn’t get their on (his) own” warning. Steve Jobs, like almost every rich businessman in the nation, did not get their on his own but – as if any of them ever claim to do so - but he didn’t arrive by himself either! And this is what Obama – and most liberals – tend to miss.

The Apple empire has created hundreds of millionaires working directly for Apple or by working for any number of other companies who have ridden Apple’s coattails in the high tech field of applications and the low tech fields of distribution and delivery and marketing. Steve has lots of company in his winner’s circle. That’s how this works.

And how did he and the other winners get there? By making millions and millions of customers happy and therefore making them repeat customers. Win, win, win!

The same is true of Fred Smith of Fed Ex or Eric Schmidt of Google or Bill Gates of Microsoft - and to smaller degrees - is also true of the guy who owns the best Sushi bar and the best construction company and is the best HVAC contractor or owns the biggest insurance agency in your town. This is the dynamic that makes the market pure.

And in addition to the direct employees and partners in these success stories, they all have to hire professionals like accountants and consultants and lawyers as well. Success does breed success.

A legitimate free market business cannot win and will not win unless most of his/her customers and employees and professional associates do too. But for some reason, Obama thinks all of his pet constituencies must have a piece of every success story as well.

And he delivered this blitheringly ignorant economic talk with a cadence that was somewhere between Hillary’s fake Selma accent and Jeremiah Wright’s best GD America tone, saying:

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.

Fine Mr. President. So what’s your point, besides just insulting every entrepreneur who worked for weeks or months for nothing on the outside chance that perhaps he or she would make it?

Where those teachers not paid while they were being great? The last time I checked, union teachers in Madison Wisconsin were making double what the rest of the state is making and retiring in their early 50’s. And then this – this takes the cake: are you saying that you agree with those who helped create this unbelievable American system you want to fundamentally transform into something else? And about those roads and bridges? Were the folks who designed and built those doing volunteer work? Were they built for free? And BTW, didn’t you repair and rebuild all of those with your shovel ready stimulus?

But he continued with his embarrassing diatribe:

The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires.

Ah yes, Obamanomics 101. When in doubt, hire more teachers, firefighters and cops. That’s the answer to any question apparently. But I have another question: Is this nation burning down due to a lack of firefighters? To hear Obama tell it, our nation is full of students begging for more teachers and buildings on fire with no fire fighters in sight. Is this really the case? I must be missing it.

But the straw arguments and the straw man complaints were not over:

I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.

Frankly, I am always struck by just what the hell country Obama lives in and by what he thinks real business is. He apparently has only been around the bullying success that comes from powerful compulsion via the government. He must think that the only way to succeed is to have Chicago pay to play power on your side. He apparently thinks models like Solyndra, not to mention stealing GM from the bond holders as a gift to the unions, really is what business success is about.

Yes, I know, some say he knows exactly what he’s doing and he fully understands. Others say he really is economically ignorant. It is really a distinction without a practical difference, since the result of his success - either in the election 2012 and/or in policy deployments between now and then - are the same. He will continue the destruction of this country as founded. Whether he applies his Marxist style governance out of ignorance or out of willful maliciousness, it is equally devastating.

But one thing is for sure. He is counting on the ignorance of the voters and of the media to allow him to get away with shameful exhibitions like the one Saturday. That was a national disgrace. If the Romney Campaign does not jump on this hard, it will be a huge opportunity missed.